japan connects the places that would be left behind

Most countries run high-speed rail between major cities and stop. The intermediate towns get a slower train or a bus or nothing. Dense corridors generate revenue. Rural stops do not.

Japan stops the Shinkansen at cities of a hundred thousand people. It stops at towns smaller than that. These stops exist because the system was designed to connect the country, not to maximize quarterly returns on one segment.

Businesses open branch offices in cities ninety minutes from Tokyo by rail that would be irrelevant without it. Workers commute distances absurd by car. Small cities retain population because they are not isolated. The train makes them reachable.

This required subsidy. JNR accumulated enormous debt building lines that would never recover construction costs through fares alone. The debt was restructured. Operating companies were split and partially privatized. The new structure kept running unprofitable routes because the government decided the routes had value beyond their balance sheets. Infrastructure changes what is possible for fifty years. You do not build it for the ten-year return.